Sundries & Curiosities for the Adventurous. A Tribal Inquiry.

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life-giving tension

People who are attached to sutras and a scriptural teaching of words can lack faith in the living, mysterious experience of meditation that leads to a sudden insight. They are . . . attached to the stubborn habit of distinguishing between “true” and “not true.” Believing only what is written in holy texts, they are conceptually mesmerized by the treasures of others, instead of digging inside to discover the priceless gems of their own, lying deep within.
~So Sahn

it is said that our revelations not only reveal themselves, they reveal our eternal reality, something that we chase all of our lives….an internal truth, an awareness of fragility and faith……

In the middle of the night
On the edges of my dreamscape
Caribou race along the rim of distant hills
And disappear.
They offer no words
But somehow they say
In vague, shifting images of gray and brown
Moonlight and pounding hooves
Stand still. Wait for once.
Don’t race over there
And stand in the middle.
Let chaos go its own way
Confused, discordant.
Keep your internal center of balance
A compass on the bridge of a storm-tossed ship.
What is the destination?
Where do we want to go?
I wish I knew.
In the darkness
Just past the light of the campfire
In the wild, nocturnal mystery
Sounds coming at you from the night
Footsteps
Breathing, the sound of some big animal breathing
Something’s waiting for you there.
Go. You won’t create your new tomorrow
Hanging around the fire, waiting
Waiting for tomorrow
Staring at flames that become embers
That become darkness.
Embrace your darkness now.
So a road opened up
And I took it.
Down some dark stairways into myself
In search of the sun.
What was supposed to happen, didn’t,
And wasn’t supposed to, did.
I don’t know what is going on.
I don’t know how things are supposed to be.
~Roderick MacIver

We must learn to hold the tension between the reality of the moment and the possibility that something better might emerge. The insight at the heart of nonviolence is that we live in a tragic gap- a gap between the way things are and the way we know they might be. It is a gap that never has been and never will be closed. If we want to live nonviolent lives, we must learn to stand in the tragic gap, faithfully holding the tension between reality and possibility in hopes of being opened to a third way. ~Parker J. Palmer